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Anders Hansson, a theoretical physicist, explores the potential of the warp drive for powering spacecraft in the future
Space propulsion that we use at the moment is really one hundred-year-old physics. The physics that was developed during the 20th century has had no impact at all on propulsion. Therefore, new ways of doing propulsion are being investigated.
Propulsion can be divided up into three parts - from earth to orbit, from orbit to the solar system and then beyond the solar system.
The technology that we are currently using is really old missile technology. Anders Hansson's dream is going from one solar system to another solar system in a time that is reasonable:
"What we want to do is to travel at very fast speeds so that we can do it within our lifetime. What is intriguing is that general relativity appears to allow us to do that."
The warp drive is basically creating a different universe around your vessel: a bubble universe. To achieve it, you would take a piece of space time, "cut it out" and warp it around the vehicle. You will be sitting inside that little bubble, so you create a bubble universe. Inside that bubble you would travel faster than the speed of light.
Anders Hansson says it would be similar to if you were in an aircraft and instead of the aircraft taking off and flying through the atmosphere and landing somewhere, you would sit statically inside the aircraft and that whole bubble would move through a different part of the universe:
"If we could do this little bubble, it would mean that we would be able to travel from our solar system to any other solar system in a very short period of time. It’s radical because people do not tend to think of space time as something that we could change."
Theoretically, this would work, but the problem is that it requires a lot of power to achieve it.
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Content last updated: 03/07/2006
